No Genre -- Festival Booking Policies

Q: Does anybody know when SXSW/NEMO/PMC/MOBFest/DIY acceptance/rejection dead-line is?
Q: How come they haven't told me yet and it's weeks past the dead-line? What does that mean?

Generally, the question to ask to find out is "Has anybody been notified they were accepted or rejected?"

Asking "Has anyone heard about when people are supposed to be notified" will most likely get you a made-up dead-line they had scheduled, but will never make.

Because the festivals generally do this:

1. Accept the people they *REALLY* *REALLY* want for the prime slots, including people who never even applied, but they consider important to have on the bill, for various reasons including, but not limited to:

Brand-Name Press Opportunities (a festival with no press is dead)
Music that deserves exposure (hey, at least it made the list)
Bands managed by fest-organizer (MOBFest -- you're just window-dressing)
S.O.'s of festival organizers (shrug)
Favors Owed (it's all about networking, baby)
Pressure from labels (see favors owed)
"Buzz" in existing press/scenes (see Press Opportunities)

In my limited experience, the percentage of "new" bands without "insider" connections at most festivals is actually quite low. Maybe the same old bands are really the only good ones out there, or maybe the bands that play just are playing the game right...

Anyway, on with our process that a festival *ACTUALLY* uses to accept bands:

2. Find out who's actually accepting the acceptance (or the invite rather) and planning to show up. Isn't scheduling fun? :-)

3. Accept the people they really wanted, but there wasn't room for, but now there is, from "A-list" people who declined invite. (See step 2.)

4. Accept artists who submitted great demos.

5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 until all slots are filled.

6. Send rejection letters/emails to people they wanted but couldn't fit in. Maybe. And maybe even to the people they just thought sucked. Maybe.

So, if others "at your level" have been accepted, but you haven't, there's still hope, but the odds are dwindling rapidly.

If others have been rejected, and you haven't been accepted, there is virtually no hope. Sometimes there is hope, that you fall into a different category that has one slot left, and you're it, baby... But that's rare. Very rare. Or, a confirmation ends up being canceled after all (can you say "alternate"?)

Festival organizers are trying to do all the work you do for a gig, times about, oh, 200. That's a lot of work, and they don't have 200 people working for them (usually). They *HAVE* to do things the way I've listed if they want their fest to be around next year. (Well, okay, maybe *some* of the excesses listed are, um, excesses...)

They don't want to send you a rejection letter, only to turn around and say "Oh, somebody we wanted said no, do you want to do it?" That's like that drunk guy that hits on every girl in the bar... And I, I mean he, never got any that way.

So by the time they know for sure that all the slots are filled and they don't have another MAJOR CRISIS on their hands, the rejection letters are generally moot, or so late that they would look stupid to send them out. Thus, step 6 often becomes "optional" Their entire lives are crisis-management from the day they decide "Yeah, let's run a festival, That's a good idea!". All the way through about three months after -- Think Christmas (holiday, whatever) bills appearing in on your credit card statements in Jan/Feb/Mar, only much, much worse.

All this is not necessarily meant as a condemnation of the festival system. These people have to make their event successful, and that's what it takes to do it. I only think every naive indie artist should be aware that that's how a festival is generally booked, so they don't suffer from the misconception that their demo gives them "equal access" to "every slot" or anything silly like that.

All the demos may or may not get listened to, and you may or may not have equal access to the slots that aren't taken up by the artists who already have an "in" of some kind. I'm still naive enough to think that the good festivals are listening to every demo, filtering them down to the "best" and giving the slots not taken by insiders to the "best".

I have no evidence/theories either way for any particular festivals, even the ones where you're just window-dressing, as to whether "equal access to open slots after insiders get theirs" is being done in any systematically "fair" way or not.

Again, if you think the above description is, or should be, a condemnation of all festivals, please try running one yourself before you pass judgement. These people (mostly) love music and are doing the best they can with real-world constraints to do something "Good". They'd be the first to admit it's not ideal (off the record, please).